Bite
by tami3
Summary: How love works between Ritsuka and his mother, Ritsuka and Seimei, and Ritsuka and Soubi. Serious oneshot.


Bite

Disclaimer: I do not own Loveless or any of its characters, I make no money off of this, etc…

Warning (?): Some violent and unconventional romantic elements, but if you're reading Loveless it's nothing that should bother you.

Author's Note: As of writing this I have read up to volume 5, so everything in this fic was based off of the story up until there. **THEREFORE THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.**

He remembered when biting between family had meant something sweet. He'd been alive long enough to know a Seimei with a kitten's mouth full of kitten's teeth, hadn't he? Ritsuka's tufty, silky corner of ear, getting nipped by points that felt tiny along his skin. It happened when he made fun of Seimei. But wait, no, of course not. It was too long ago, in the time of the Ritsuka who had vanished, back when Seimei was closer to his size and maybe had a mismatched set of undersized baby teeth and adult teeth sowing themselves behind smiling lips.

It's not like he could remember a Seimei that wasn't big, jaws chock full of those big awkward clumps of patterns that left convoluted markings on a sheet. They had made his charred skull bite a piece of paper for them to look at.

Ah, yes. There it was. That sad little blank spot where one of Seimei's incisors had been chipped and now there was no mark. That was when their mother had picked up a mug to smash against Ritsuka's head. Even a horrible mother will just whip the thing at her child and let the explosion of white shards against his temples end it. But their mother had been worse than horrible and it hadn't broken. It had ricocheted off of him, throwing his head back with a crack, thumping into the wall and then softly thudding onto their carpeted floor. That had made her feel unlucky, weak.

If it wouldn't shatter then it would break, fall away from her hands chunk by jagged chunk. She snatched it up again and pulled her arm sideways, prepared to ring the sound of ceramic against molars as many times as she needed. The bottom of the cup could break off or Ritsuka's teeth could get smashed out of his gums into a pile on his tongue. Maybe from then on her punches would press only into soft hollows at the sides of his face and then her hand wouldn't sting when she hit him.

Seimei swept up behind him instead, pushing Ritsuka's head down out of the way. He was the only thing left in front of her hand. Afterwards, he was bleeding so badly for just a tooth that just got its tip knocked off that he hadn't even tried to speak to her and calm her down, which he usually did. Seimei pulled Ritsuka by his shoulders into the usual place, the bathroom. He put ointment on Ritsuka's forehead and swished out his mouth with water. They'd compared bruises. Seimei's engorged upper lip to Ritsuka's lump.

Seimei hadn't been hurt and from that day on when he grinned he looked just a little bit crazy. But he was eye level with Misaki, who became quieter and larger eyed at having to look upon a Seimei whose face was a little damaged and always looked straight out. It wasn't like with Ritsuka, whose bowed head somewhere around her waist meant she only saw the top of his dark head and lowered ears. So she had behaved herself for a while, after that.

Ah, there she was now. Looking at the dental records. Ignoring the police's question of why Seimei had a chipped tooth. Had had a chipped tooth. Ritsuka can see the smoky bags underneath her eyes. Her fingers are wrenching deep into the skirt on her lap. The way she's tucked her mouth and her body in makes it look like she'll never talk again.

"Seimei and I were playing…and then we had a fight." Ritsuka mumbles for her. What did it matter if they came away with the wrong "we"? The problem between him and his mother had been between her and Seimei, and him and Seimei, and this said it better than anything. Seimei did that. He stepped in between them and made it stop. How wrong would things be now that he is gone?

But Misaki looks like she's already stopped and won't ever move again. Both she and Ritsuka, in their new lonely isolated "we," might never move again.

----

Ritsuka's always wanted to be as big as Seimei. Maybe then his mother would dart around him while saying she loved him, just like she did with Ritsuka's tall father and tall Seimei. When she isn't beating Ritsuka she has her hands plastered on the nape of his neck and curled around his ribs. Ritsuka seems to fold into her arms and get stuck there. But Seimei, she couldn't reach all the way around him. He would peel her off and walk away.

Now, he just can't get past how Seimei smoldered down, body fat melting and flesh drying and bones turning to char, but still had left such a big corpse. When he and his classmates had walked through the door, their tiny sixth-grader bodies had fell under his early morning shadow like sparrows beneath a hawk. Ritsuka had had a premonition even then, sensing the familiar sensation of being towered over by someone so loved and familiar that it wasn't even threatening.

But that hadn't been Seimei.

Just who was it that they had been impressed by? Who else could die so convincingly as Seimei other than Seimei?

How easy was it to be a replacement for Seimei?

Soubi bites like Seimei.

When he takes Ritsuka's ear in his mouth he goes all around the edge, so light that it only prickles where he grazes. An itchy ticklishness pours down Ritsuka's spine. When they break apart Ritsuka swivels around to look at him. His eyes are level and placid, cool. That's a lot like Seimei.

And Soubi doesn't bite like Seimei.

When Soubi bites Ritsuka, he doesn't feel his heart loosen as he squeals and laughs and flails.He doesn't melt into him and throw his arms around him, which are even shorter than Misaki's but seemed to envelop his big brother completely by the strength of wishing. Instead Ritsuka's tail goes haywire, all pins and needles. His face flares red. He gets angry enough to bite Soubi back, only hard on his hands or wherever, and draw blood...like his mother once did with him. He's not like Seimei.

His instincts around Soubi are only to yell or run away. Like Misaki around Ritsuka. When she's not screaming at him she's pushing him away because that's not what she wants to do at all and yet that is all she knows how to do. Ritsuka's mother loves him, in a way neither of them understands. She can lock herself in her room and beg him to leave her alone for his own sake, but he follows anyways.

Because he's stupid. Because he forgives her weakness. It's not a good kind of love at all. It makes Ritsuka sick and he knows if he ever wants to be normal and happy, he has to throw it away.

Seimei had said their mother had learned how to love from her own parents. So no wonder Ritsuka does the same thing with Soubi. He tells him to go away and never come back because he senses that what they have is wrong, wrong. Only Soubi is an adult. He too, understands, and is in control enough to just smile at Ritsuka's hysteria while Ritsuka gets his smile stolen away by his mother's. He allows Ritsuka to be a child and reject him so Soubi can ignore it and go after him anyway.

Because they cling. All four of them.

And when they can't take it anymore, they bite.

---

_Why did I write an entire fic about teeth and biting? shrugs …maybe I have an oral fixation…Mmmm…I don't like this at all, because it's pointless…and I don't think I got to point I wanted to make._

_I started out just wanting to do fan fiction again. (This is my first fanfic in two years and first non-video game one.) I admit I wrote myself into a corner. But I'll try harder with my next one. It feels like it'll be another Loveless one. _


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